The Floyd Anderson Texas Update

Austinites Refute TSA Propaganda About ABIA Naked Body Scanners

2011-01-18T19:19:00.001-06:00

Heather Fazio with Texans for Accountable Government, Wesley Strackbein, and Bradley Pierce, speak before the Austin City Council about the outrageous abuse of power exhibited by the Transportation Safety Administration at Austin Bergstrom International airport.

Fans of The Jeff Davis Show

2010-12-14T18:55:00.001-06:00

Several Access Television Producers Proclaim their Love For the Jeff Davis Show!

The Charlie Hodge Rock n Roll Half-Time Show 7/15/2010 - Know Your Bush

2010-07-16T18:55:00.000-05:00

Know Your Bush, Dubya-Style
KLBJ 93.7 FM Charlie Hodge & Chickenwing
http://www.klbjfm.com/jocks/charlie.aspx

Tough Road Ahead Collecting Late Tolls

2010-05-25T22:10:00.003-05:00

Courts would be overwhelmed, no way to enforce

Chris Willis
KXAN Austin News
May 24, 2010

AUSTIN (KXAN) - More than 150,000 toll violators owe $56.1 million in outstanding tolls and "administrative fees" - but the Texas Department of Transportation is hitting a roadblock, or several, when it comes to collecting them.

To be exact, the amount of outstanding tolls is $3.12 million. But KXAN discovered TXDOT is charging some violators more than 4000 percent in those "administrative fees". And those fees are what push the total amount of money owed to $56.1 million.

TXDOT said they're now going to take those violators to court.

"Once the court date is scheduled, we step out of the process, it's in the hands of the court," said Mark E. Tomlinson, TXDOT's director of the Turnpike Authority.

But that's where their troubles begin; those cases are going to cause a major traffic jam in already strained courts, and county officials say they foresee them stalling out.

By law, the toll cases must be heard in a Justice of the Peace court with toll road jurisdiction. And most of those courtrooms hear roughly 9000 cases a year. Imagine the confusion when TXDOT tells the courts in Williamson and Travis counties they’re sending them 150,000 cases.

Local attorney Bill Gammon said right now, TXDOT cannot send any toll violation cases to court. He added the counties have been left in the dark when it comes to how the process will be handled.

"Once people realize this, they're going to have even less respect for the law and less respect for TXDOT and anybody else who tells them they're going to take them to court," he said.

"They're going to laugh."

KXAN spoke with the elected officials in Williamson and Travis counties, and they agree with Gammon.

Travis County Treasurer Delores Ortega Carter said TXDOT needs to get their ducks in a row before they file any toll violation cases.

"They can file all the cases they want, how long they’ll be there we don't know," she said.

Carter's colleague in Williamson County, Treasurer Vivian Wood concurs. "I just can’t see our judge and commissioners agreeing to anything even though the statute is there."

County officials said it all boils down to what is called an Interlocal Agreement: A set of rules and guidelines to outline procedures dealing with court costs, collection of tolls and fees, where the money collected goes, payment methods, timeliness and line items.

They said there has got to be an Interlocal Agreement before any cases can be heard in county courtrooms. Ortega-Carter and Wood told KXAN they've been trying to get an agreement with TXDOT since 2006, but have not heard anything from the state agency.

"I don't have anything from the state that tells me…and we don't just send money down to the Comptroller without the state's requirements for identification of those funds," Wood said.

Ortega-Carter added: "We need to have a paper trail so that, for auditing purposes, we can see where it’s going. We don't care how the state spends the money, that's their problem. We do care how the county receives that money."

TXDOT is now sending "last chance" letter to toll violators, threatening to take them to court if they do not pay their tolls and "administrative fees."

Tomlinson says one case has already been filed in Williamson County. And Tomlinson admits, they may not get far until they get together with county officials.

"We don’t want any mistakes on our part" he said. "We want to make sure the cases are good and the court processes are respected."

In the meantime, Gammon says 150,000 cases would simply overwhelm the court system, and he adds there’s no way TXDOT can burden the Justice of the Peace Courts with such a heavy case load.

He says if TXDOT does get Interlocal Agreements with Williamson and Travis Counties, and if they insist on charging violators 4000 percent in "administrative fees," violators who do end-up in court should simply request a jury trial.

"I think most jurors would be offended at the way this is being handled," said Gammon.

TXDOT’s Wisconsin-based collection agency is now calling violators at home and sending letters to try and get them to pay their tolls and fees.

But if you ignore the collection agency, there is little they can do. They cannot contact your credit report, they cannot prevent you from renewing your driver's license and they cannot stop you from registering your vehicle with the state.

Taking violators to court could be TXDOT's only option to collect the money. But until an Interlocal Agreement is reached, county officials said those cases will not be heard.

The Jeff Davis Show - Your City Water is Poisoned

2010-05-21T20:01:00.001-05:00

Why do local governments across the country knowingly inject a toxic waste byproduct into our water supply? The award-winning Jeff Davis Show interviews representatives from Fluoride Free Austin to find out why.

The Jeff Davis Show - Stop Federal Fusion Centers!

2010-05-21T19:36:00.001-05:00

On the long-running Jeff Davis Show, representatives from Texans for Accountable Government tell us about their fight to keep these Orwellian spy centers out of Texas

The Jeff Davis Show - Illegal Aliens: Threat or Scapegoat?

2010-05-21T19:13:00.001-05:00

Catherine Bleich of Operation Defuse Interviewed by CNN at Brave New Books

2010-05-10T18:46:00.003-05:00

http://operationdefuse.com/
http://www.libertyrestorationproject.org/
http://tagtexas.org/
http://www.bravenewbookstore.com/

The Jeff Davis Show 5/2/2010: Police are Terrorists

2010-05-07T20:30:00.001-05:00

The award-winning Jeff Davis Show presents its very own Terror Watch List!

Austin Fusion Center Rammed Down Our Throats Despite Privacy Complaints

2010-05-07T20:18:00.001-05:00

News Coverage of the May 3rd Public Safety Commission in Austin, Texas

The Jeff Davis Show 4/25/10 - The Drug War: No Excuses

2010-04-29T22:39:00.000-05:00

On the long-running Jeff Davis Show co-host Sasan Sadat exposes the real effects of the drug war and dissects the excuses that have been used to keep this war going for more than three decades.

Texas LiberTEA Party - April 15th, 2010 at the Texas State Capitol Building

2010-04-21T18:52:00.002-05:00

John Bush

Jack Blood

Police: Teaching Kids to Mistrust Government Makes Couple ‘Unsuitable’ Parents

2010-04-21T16:45:00.003-05:00

Stephen C. Webster
True/Slant: Brave New Hooks
March 30, 2010

Texans, beware: If you teach your kids that the “government is out to harm them,” police in Williamson County might just deem you an “unsuitable” parent.

That startling claim, leveled by officers in Child Protective Services documents detailing an investigation into an Austin-area activist couple, should be enough to give reason for pause to any staunch conservative in the state.

The allegation was made against drug reform activist filmmakers Barry and Candi Cooper, whose home was recently raided and searched after the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department claimed Barry’s voice was heard in the background audio of an allegedly false police report.

Once in the couple’s home, officers discovered a small amount of marijuana and charged the Coopers with Class B misdemeanors, resulting in both their arrests. Each immediately bonded out of jail and paid a small fine. Days later, while Candi’s youngest son was visiting his father in east Texas, Child Protective Services contacted the Coopers, revealing that the incident could cost them not only custody of the boy, but also their freedom on felony child endangerment charges.

After CPS interviewed the couple, Travis County Deputy District Attorney Dayna Blazey pronounced both Coopers to be fit parents, whose children are healthy, happy and “well cared for.”

“[There] is nothing to indicate that the kids are at risk,” she wrote.

A message requesting the deputy DA’s comment on this story went unanswered at time of publication.

Her conclusion, which falls at the end of documents published below, is almost odd following the numerous pages of text entered by police, who seemingly describe an alternate reality.

Among their claims — that Barry and Candi regularly give illicit drugs to their children, that they allow and encourage other kids to use drugs in their home, that they’ve mentally abused their children by telling them that marijuana is good and anti-drug efforts are riddled with lies — the most extreme is that the Coopers are “unsuitable” parents because they create an environment in which the children learn their “government is out to harm them.”

The allegation is found atop page five of the CPS report.

In another completely dumbfounding, ironic entry, Sgt. Gary Haston of the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department — the officer whose testimony appears on the original search warrant affidavit — actually claims he observed the children “crying for no reason” as armed officers invaded their home. [Emphasis added.]

He also claims that Barry “hates” his father and does not believe in church, as though this information would somehow be relevant to the CPS agents.

Haston, who Cooper described as Williamson County’s “head of narcotics,” has an extensive history with drug interdiction as a police officer. He was even the 2008-2009 vice president for the Texas Narcotic Officers Association Central Region, according to a memo circulated by the association. It was his testimony that gave officers access to the Coopers’ residence and files for the alleged misdemeanor offense of filing a false police report.

A request for comment left with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department went unanswered at time of publication.

“In my 19 years of experience with criminal defense matters, a search warrant for a misdemeanor charge is certainly unusual,” wrote Minnesota attorney Maury D. Beaulier, who had no prior knowledge of the Coopers’ case. “It indicates to me that this is a targeted investigation. It may be targeted because it is believed to be a part of a greater crime or conspiracy, or, perhaps, because there are political motivations at work.”

While searching through the Coopers’ private data, police discovered a photograph of a minor in the shower, nude from the bust up. The image was a risque self-portrait shot by one of the adolescent children, who later took sole responsibility for the photo. Both parents claimed they knew nothing about it before the issue was raised to them by authorities. Ultimately, the photo held no bearing on their case and the minor was warned to be cautious with digital imaging equipment. Because of the individual’s age, all identifying information has been removed from the documents published below.

In a court hearing Tuesday, the Coopers were unsuccessful in re-obtaining custody of Zachary, Candi’s seven-year-old who is currently under the care of his father in Upshur County, Texas. The court did not issue a ruling, as matters of geographic limitations have yet to be addressed. Barry and Candi are seeking to have the custody battle in Travis County, but it’s still a matter of dispute. Lawyers for the Coopers and Zachary Johnston’s father brokered limited visitation rights for Candi, but Barry is required to stay away from the boy for the time being.

Because of the nature of Texas’ drug laws and their status as nationally-known political activists, the Coopers are facing the very real possibility of losing Zach entirely, with future contact only allowed in the context of supervised visitation.

“I just don’t know what I’ll do if we lose Zach,” Barry said. “That would be the most horrible thing to ever happen to me in my entire life.”

The 19-page CPS report follows.
####

Texas Stadium Controlled Demolition on 4/11 at 7:07

2010-04-21T16:38:00.001-05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Stadium#Demolition

The Jeff Davis Show 4/18/2010 - Interview with Waco Siege Survivor

2010-04-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

What really happened in Waco, TX in 1993? The long-running "Jeff Davis Show" blows the cover off the official story with an eye-witness account from Clive Doyle, who was inside the Branch Davidian building for the entire duration of the siege.

Watch The Jeff Davis Show LIVE Sundays @ 10:00 PM CST

2010-04-20T01:02:00.003-05:00

The Jeff Davis Show
Live from Austin, Texas on Sundays @ 10:00 PM CST
http://www.channelaustin.org/streaming/ch10

Nazi Police KILL 9/11 TRUTH Free Speech in San Antonio

2010-04-13T22:49:00.001-05:00

Alex Jones with We Are Change San Antonio

2010-04-13T22:32:00.002-05:00

http://www.sanantoniotruth.org/
http://www.wearechange.org/

Alice In Wonderland at the Austin Scottish Rite Theater

2010-04-02T00:20:00.000-05:00

I made it over to the local Freemasonic Theater to watch an Alice in Wonderland play on Sunday March 28, 2010.

Here is the 2010 schedule for the theater. It's interesting that one of the plays begins on September 11.

Freemasonic buildings don't seem to ever have many windows.

I managed to capture some video of the play. The theater had twin pillars on the sides of the stage with a double-headed eagle centered above.

KopBusting Ex-Narc Plans To Sue Police for Millions

2010-03-18T20:07:00.001-05:00

Jeremiah Vandermeer
Cannabis Culture
March 11, 2010

CANNABIS CULTURE - Ex-narcotics officer Barry Cooper is fuming over a police raid on his home and plans to sue the officers and officials involved for $30 million, calling their conduct "obvious retaliation" for a sting operation he pulled on Texas police for his show KopBusters.

"We are going to sue every Williamson County officer involved in the raid, the judges who signed my warrants, the sheriffs department, and the jail for false imprisonment," Cooper told Cannabis Culture. "According to my lawyers, it will be about $30 million."

Cooper, who served almost a decade as a drug enforcement officer before renouncing his past and becoming a marijuana activist, was arrested last week by Williamson County officers who claimed he filed a false police report during the setup for an episode of his Internet show that targets corrupt cops.

After arresting Cooper for the misdemeanor, 10 or more officers raided his home with guns pointed at his wife and seven-year-old son, and eventually found less than a gram of marijuana in the form of a few roaches.

Cooper, who is running for Texas Attorney General, has successfully busted police with a sting he calls "Finders Keepers" where a bag containing $45, some unused glass pipes, a fake drug-debt list, and a hidden GPS locator is placed in a public place and reported to police as suspicious. In a successful sting on a Liberty Hill police office he recorded for KopBusters, the officer took the money and ditched the bag.

When the KopBusters team attempted the sting again in Florence Texas, police didn't take the bait and retrieved the "suspicious package" in the legal manner. Later, police reviewed a recording of the phone call reporting the package by a caller identifying himself as "Ted Smith". Officers claim they could hear Cooper talking in the background, and filed for the arrest warrant.

Sergeant Gary Haston writes in the affidavit for Cooper's arrest warrant, "Upon review of the recorded telephone call made to the communication center at the Williamson County Sheriff's Office for this event, [Haston] was immediately able to discern the second, unidentified voice on the call as belonging to...Barry Neal Cooper. [Haston] is familiar with Cooper's voice from having heard him speak on numerous occasions in videos posted by Cooper on the internet website "YouTube," as well as Cooper's own website "Nevergetbusted.com."

"Our lawyers are laughing at that affidavit," Cooper said. "First of all, it wasn't a false report. According to the affidavit for the warrant, the caller said there was a suspicious bag at the school. Well, there was a suspicious bag at the school, so that's not a false report. But even is there was a valid case of a false report, it would be for the person who made the call, not someone talking in the background."

Cooper says police raids for misdemeanors are unheard of, and points to the presence of narcotics officers who kept asking "what do you have in your garage?" during his arrest as proof that a lot more was going on behind the scenes.

"In my entire law enforcement career and since I've been out I've never heard of a raid being conducted on a home for a misdemeanor," Cooper said." They knew that the arrest warrant affidavit would not pass the smell test with a real judge, so they took it to a Justice of the Peace."

He says police probably expected to find a large marijuana growing operation at his house, which would have overshadow their shady methods. When they didn't find any pot plants, police scoured the house and came up with only a few roaches - not much, but enough for a pair of arrest warrants for Cooper and his wife Candi. Though they have both been charged with possession, Cooper says after pleading guilty, the courts would probably knock the charges down to a Class C misdemeanor and a fine.

He says his family has been turned upside down in the raid - a terrifying four-hour experience where shouting police came through the front door with guns drawn, and eventually seized computers, electronic equipment and even his wife's iPod.

The Williamson County Sheriff's office did not return phone calls to Cannabis Culture.

The lawsuit will be filed in the next couple weeks he says, and he will continue fighting corrupt cops for those who can't.

"This is proof that if you do fight back against corruption, you will get raided and go to jail," Cooper said. "It is not a fair system and it is intimidating for people out there who want to change things. That's why we will keep fighting."

UPDATE: Big props to one of my favorite reporters, Stephen C. Webster from True/Slant (pictured standing behind Barry in the photo above) for his diligent reporting on the KopBusters (and for mentioning Cannabis Culture in his latest piece).

Acevedo Finalist to Lead Dallas Police

2010-03-13T18:30:00.002-06:00

Acevedo says he sought opportunity after it was presented

Tony Plohetski
Austin American-Statesman
March 8, 2010

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, within hours of applying for the job, was named one of six finalists Monday to become the next leader of the Dallas police force.

Panels of Dallas residents, city officials and police union representatives will interview Acevedo later this month, but it was unclear Monday when the city would name its new chief .

Acevedo, who has been in Austin since July 2007, said he applied after the position "was presented to me." He had privately informed several top city officials in recent days that he was considering applying for the job but had not told them he'd formally entered the process.

"I want to assure the men and women of the Austin Police Department that I very much enjoy my work with this great department," Acevedo said in a statement. "The decision to respond to this opportunity is not an indication of my dissatisfaction, in any way, with this outstanding police department."

The announcement comes at a time when Acevedo's prominence in Austin — and the law enforcement community nationally — continues to grow.

Some City Hall insiders Monday night questioned whether Acevedo might attempt to use the possibility of becoming Dallas' chief to bolster his Austin salary, which was about $180,000 last year, or to obtain other perks such as an employment contract with the city.

In his statement, Acevedo mentioned that the average tenure of a major city chief is three to five years and that he has no contract with the City of Austin — only City Manager Marc Ott does.

Ott said he thinks any discussion about a counteroffer is premature.

"I don't want to presuppose what is going to happen in that regard," he said.

However, Acevedo, who oversees about 1,600 officers, said he would probably accept an offer in Dallas if he and the city agree on the salary and other terms. Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle , who plans to leave in April, earned about $177,000 last year.

The Dallas opening comes during a time of mounting strain between Acevedo and some city leaders, who have raised concerns, in particular, about his decisions to bypass some officers for promotions.

Acevedo has lost two recent appeals by officers who were bypassed, and hearings for a third began this week.

Some City Council members earlier this year expressed frustration at having to create a high-ranking position for an officer who won his appeal. Acevedo had not left a slot vacant while the matter was being resolved.

Acevedo also has increasingly garnered the spotlight at community events, including a recent anti-hate rally downtown, during which he received thunderous applause and cheers while City Council members looked on.

City officials offered mixed reactions Monday night to Acevedo's possible departure. Several talked as if Acevedo would probably be hired.

"He will be hard to replace," Mayor Lee Leffingwell said. "In a way, I hope he doesn't get it, but I wish him well. He has a career to think about, and his career is ahead of him."

Acevedo, 45, moved to Austin after spending more than two decades with the California Highway Patrol. He found a department that was under U.S. Department of Justice scrutiny for how it uses force against minorities and has worked in recent years to improve police and community relations.

Council Member Laura Morrison said, "I wish him well and good luck if he's looking to a new future."

However, Council Member Mike Martinez said he has no indication that Acevedo would leave. "I think it is premature to sound any alarms right now," Martinez said.

But Martinez said he isn't surprised that Dallas encouraged Acevedo to apply.

According to a City of Dallas memo, other contenders for the job include the San Jose, Calif., and Louisville, Ky., police chiefs. The city's job posting said the next chief would oversee about 3,600 officers and a $410 million budget.

"The next Chief will be expected to continue growing the sworn component of the department while confronted with budget challenges," the posting said.

Among the rank-and-file, Austin officers said Monday night that they were surprised by the announcement, said Sgt. Wayne Vincent, the police union president.

Relations between the union and Acevedo also have grown increasingly frayed, culminating last month with the chief's decision to take to court an arbitrator's opinion to reinstate a fired officer.

"I wish him luck if (Dallas) is what he wants to pursue," Vincent said.

Joe Stack’s Intriguing Connections With Defense Contractors, Intelligence Agencies

2010-02-24T18:30:00.007-06:00

Austin suicide pilot jointly leased hangar with manager of air defense systems

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
February 23, 2010

Austin suicide pilot Joe Stack kept some very interesting company as far as the client list for his software programming company is concerned, including a defense contractor with NSA and Homeland Security connections that ironically dealt with air defense systems.

The Georgetown Airport hanger in which Stack’s ill-fated Piper Cherokee was kept was jointly leased by Stack and a man called John Podolak, records show.

The Of Goats and Men blog highlights the fact that Podolak was appointed in 2004 to manage L-3 Avisys’ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Counter-MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems) initiative.

L-3 Avisys is a defense contractor with its main headquarters based in Austin, Texas which sells products and works closely with the Department of Defense and unnamed “U.S. Government intelligence agencies.”

Podolak was hired to “oversee a strong team of more than 10 IRCM defense suppliers who will perform research studies and lead the transition of the team’s proposed CAPS (Commercial Airliner Protection System) technology to the airline industry.”

L-3 was also a key client for Stack’s software programming business. Stack helped develop a GPS-based Fight Management System for IEC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of L-3.

L-3 was also investigated by the SEC for its role in the suspicious number of “put options” on United and American Airlines, speculation that a company’s stock will fall, in the days before 9/11.

Indeed, former NSA official Wayne Madsen wrote in September 2008 that, “A long-time L-3 Communications consultant for the National Security Agency (NSA) was, according to our source, one of the very few recipients of the live video stream that caught the first plane hitting the North Tower.”

“Other clients on the list such as DMC Stratex Networks and Sorrento Electronics also are defense contractors and probably a closer examination of these and other corporations on Stack’s client list will reveal more interesting details,” notes the blog.

The blog also highlights transponder flight tracking records of Stack’s plane which show that its last journey took place on August 6, 2009, and not on February 18 last week when the aircraft was slammed into the Echelon building.

One poster on the Prison Planet forum speculates, “This plane may still be in a hanger at GTU.”

Could Stack’s lightweight Piper Cherokee really have caused such drastic damage to the facade of the Echelon building when compared with other small planes that have crashed into buildings like that of New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle?

The huge fireball reported by eyewitnesses could well have been as a result of extra fuel canisters Stack had loaded onto the plane to inflict maximum damage, but this has yet to be confirmed by authorities.

Intimate ties with defense contractors, not just through his software company, but on a personal level with L-3’s John Podolak will only serve to deepen the intrigue surrounding the motivation behind Stack’s attack on the IRS building, with scant details having emerged since the tragic incident last week.

Another startling contradiction comes in the form of Stack’s last words, which were reported by the media and apparently confirmed by audio from air traffic control tapes to be, “Thanks for your help, have a good day.”

However, audio taken from radio scanners who also recorded Stack’s last words is slightly different from that being forwarded as the official version. The second version of the audio, Stack’s final words are, “I’m definitely checking out, have a good day.”

A comparison of the two clips can be heard at this link.

While one eyewitness described seeing no pilot in the cockpit, another told WeAreAustin.com, “The pilot looked like he was in a comatose state; leaning back and going on in.”

Another interesting discrepancy to have emerged is the fact that Stack’s daughter told the Associated Press that Stack’s suicide note did not sound like it was written by him.

“It’s not him. The letter itself sounds like it’s coming from a different person. It didn’t sound like it came from him,” Samantha Dawn Bell told the AP.

Scanners Coming to Capitol?

2010-02-01T15:51:00.003-06:00

During closed-door meeting, officials discuss possible checkpoints and more cameras.

Mike Ward
Austin American-Statesman
January 28, 2010

One week after a man opened fire with a pistol outside the Texas Capitol's south entrance, legislative leaders took a possible first step toward beefing up security at the storied landmark with checkpoints and more surveillance cameras.

The move came Thursday during a closed-door meeting at which top officials with the Department of Public Safety briefed key aides to Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and state House Speaker Joe Straus, as well as other legislative leaders, about the Jan. 21 shooting and recommendations to enhance Capitol security.

Although officials declined to comment on the details of the recommendations, citing security concerns, participants confirmed that security checkpoints at Capitol entrances could be on the way.

One possible sticking point: how to allow Texans with concealed-weapons permits to get through security with their guns. Perry, Dewhurst and Straus probably will make the final decision.

If approved, enhanced security or controlled access to the statehouse would mark a historic change. Public entry at the Capitol has been open to all comers over the years — even though surveillance cameras and the presence of troopers in the halls have been beefed up since the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 and the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Metal detectors and package scanners have been used temporarily several times in recent years at the entrances to public galleries of the legislative chambers during sessions and for a time during the second Gulf War. Driveways are staffed by troopers who check motorists, and steel bollards block vehicle access.

"We are examining a number of options for additional security at the Capitol and have not yet hit upon a final plan," said DPS spokeswoman Tela Mange. "We can't discuss Capitol security beyond that."

A Perry spokesman said the governor's comment last week about enhanced security still stands: "I'm always up for looking at new ways to protect our citizens, but the last thing I want is the Texas Capitol to turn into" Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

In a statement, Dewhurst said, "While we want to encourage people to visit the Texas Capitol, in a post-9/11 world and in light of last week's shooting incident, we need to seriously consider the DPS' enhanced security recommendations, including metal detectors, to help ensure everyone's safety."

Straus had no immediate comment.

"Everyone has the message now: We want to make the building secure, and we want to use common sense in doing that," said state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston , who participated in Thursday's meeting. "We're not going to turn it into DFW airport."

In 2009, long before the shooting occurred, DPS officials who oversee Capitol security had ordered a security review by the U.S. Secret Service. The report is said to have recommended major increases in staffing and the installation of package scanners and metal detectors at entrances and added surveillance cameras.

In the week since the shooting, an increasing chorus of lawmakers has called for boosting Capitol security.

Fausto Cardenas, 24, most recently of Houston, remains jailed on a felony charge in the shooting. He had visited the office of Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston , just before the shooting. He unsuccessfully pressed to visit privately with a Patrick staffer, and left .

Earlier this week, Patrick — who holds a state concealed-handgun permit, along with a number of other Texas lawmakers — sent his colleagues a letter advocating increased Capitol security. "However ... I do not want to see those who have a legal right to carry a gun denied their constitutional right.

"Whatever new measures we may adopt, I would not want to stop law-abiding CHL holders from carrying their guns in the Capitol," he stated in the letter. "The goal is to stop those who bring illegal weapons into the Capitol, not those who have a legal right to do so."

Patrick proposed a system where credentials would be issued to Capitol employees, media and others who come to the Capitol regularly — after they pass a background check — "so they can come and go easily." A minimum-security entrance could also be designated for schools and other groups that do not need to undergo major screening. Everyone else would have to go through other entrances with metal detectors and package scanners.

Reached by phone Thursday, Patrick said Texans with concealed-handgun licenses might "put their gun in a tray, go through the detector, pick it up and go," or perhaps they could show their state-issued license and walk around security-screening devices.

Holders of concealed weapons permits must undergo training and pass a background check, among other things.

Why not make the Capitol a gun-free zone altogether, like schools and businesses?

"If you continue to restrict more and more places where CHL holders can carry their weapons, you're tearing away at the intent of the legislation that established this program," Patrick said.

1/25/2010 Gun Rights Rally at Austin Police Headquarters

2010-01-27T16:36:00.009-06:00

Alex Jones decided to bullhorn while others were speaking.

http://tagtexas.org/
http://www.iamlola.org/
http://www.libertyrestorationproject.org/
http://www.wearechangeaustin.org/
http://www.infowars.com/

As Alex Jones Arrives

‘Papers Please’ for Reporter at Texas Capitol Shooting Investigation

2010-01-23T12:43:00.004-06:00

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." – Benjamin Franklin

Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
January 22, 2010

Like other reporters in the Austin-area, the Infowars team was immediately sent to the Texas Capitol building on news that a man, identified as Fausto Cardenas, had started shooting for no apparent reason.

There wasn’t much else to discover once we got there. The suspect had apparently harmed no one and State Troopers were quietly combing over the South steps with their investigation. Apart from reports about an angry visit to State Senator Dan Patrick’s office, there was no indication of a possible motive for the bizarre incident. Spokeswoman Tela Mange was polite but offered very little info.

I had catalogued all the activity going on behind the roped-off area and wandered around the other side of the Capitol to film another grouping of troopers who were combing the grounds with a (presumably bomb-sniffing) dog. When a trooper noticed me filming their quiet investigation, everything suddenly changed.

Though the building itself was closed, the Capitol grounds remained open, and people were milling about freely. Only the area immediately surrounding the South steps was restricted by yellow tape. This was not that area.

Yet this officer approached me sternly, pointing his finger and commanding that I ‘point the camera somewhere else’ and provide ID. I refused.

For those who have forgotten, in the haze of post-9/11 paranoia, America is not a ‘papers please’ dictatorship or a corrupt banana republic, even if certain forces are attempting to drag us in that direction.

Outside the Capitol, ostensibly a monument to free society, there was no reason to impose ’security’ in the face of natural public order. There was no panicked atmosphere; the shooting was clearly over. Media personnel, news cameras and other spectators were waiting around calmly.

So why did this officer feel the need to rush up and demand I justify myself? Were I suspected of a crime as benign as speeding such action might have been warranted, but I had literally done nothing but look in the wrong direction and catch the eye of the wrong person.

His name is known, but not important in this instance. He ceased being an officer, abandoning due process for arbitrary power. That is against the law– the spirit of the law– and thus I felt compelled not to go along with it. He asked if I had ID and I told him truthfully that I did, but did not feel I should give it.

He told me not to move as he called over his superior officer. I asked if I was being detained. "Yes," he answered clearly. I was now considered a supsicious person for not producing my driver’s license on demand for no reason.

After a few minutes of impatient waiting, the superior officer asked a few questions, discovered I had done nothing at all and let me go without further ado. And yet, something had happened at the Capitol.

There, as elsewhere, with every capricious event, came a clumsy hardening of the system. Everytime an unpredictable person surprises us with a crime or even "act of terror" in an otherwise ordinary place, we act not with order and resolve– showing the strength of good laws. We instead react with panic and fear, as we begin regarding everyone with suspicion.

The result is a loss of our principles, and a compromising of good laws with ‘emergency power’ to meet a crisis. Not pursuit of a crime in progress, but a publicly-trusted and oath-sworn officer frightfully uncertain if he is looking out at his fellow-citizens or a sea of potential criminals and potential ‘terrorists.’

In our fear, we capitulate to the purveyors of chaos and lawlessness. Have we truly, fundamentally reached a point where we are so ‘terrorized’ that we really do throw out the baby with the bathwater? The wisdom and protection of the Constitution is our most precious public holding. Would we really violate it for such small urgings?

Houston Man Accused of Firing Shots at Texas Capitol

2010-01-22T11:32:00.004-06:00

WeAreAustin.com
Thursday, Jan 21, 2010

A 24-year-old Houston man opened fire on the south steps of the Texas Capitol Thursday, according to state troopers.

Fausto Cardenas is in the Travis County Jail charged with Deadly Conduct, a third-degree felony. Watch security video of deputies bringing Fausto Cardenas into the Travis County Jail

According to a post on State Sen. Dan Patrick’s Twitter account, a man came to his office acting strangely. His staff called security.

Witnesses say the man went outside followed by Department of Public Safety troopers. He fired several shots from a small caliber handgun. Troopers then pinned him down and took him into custody. Other officers locked down the building.

No one was injured.

Investigators say they do not know a motive in the shooting but they believe Cardenas acted alone.

Late Thursday after the Capitol remained closed to the public but lawmakers and staff could enter.

Only a few lawmakers were there because the Legislature was not in session. House Speaker Joe Straus' office said he was stuck in the building while it was on lockdown. Sen. Leticia Van De Putte wrote on her Twitter page that she was also inside.

Gov. Rick Perry was not in the building at the time.

“I commend the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers who responded swiftly to a shooter on the South Steps of the State Capitol. Thanks to their efforts no one was injured and the shooter was apprehended immediately and taken in to custody,” he said.

Protest of G20 Police Militarization And Fusion Centers By We Are Change Austin

2010-01-09T17:39:00.002-06:00

http://operationdefuse.com/

John Bush Speaks About The Austin Regional Intelligence Center

2010-01-09T16:30:00.003-06:00

This is from the December 2009 meeting of the newly formed Austin Public Safety Commission

http://operationdefuse.com/

New World Order Crumbling - We Are Change Austin Celebrates Recent Victories Over Tyranny

2009-12-22T23:32:00.001-06:00

http://wearechangeaustin.org
http://theaustinfreepress.com

G. Edward Griffin Speaks on the Federal Reserve at the University of Texas 12/10/2009

2009-12-22T20:21:00.001-06:00

G. Edward Griffin speaks at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on the University of Texas campus, December 10, 2009. Opening speakers are Harlan Dietrich of Brave New Books and John Bush of Texans for Accountable Government.

VIDEO BY FLOYD ANDERSON

Austin Citizens Battle Water Fluoridation 12/2/2009

2009-12-11T18:51:00.006-06:00

Fluoride Free Austin
http://www.fluoridefreeaustin.com/

Fluoride Action Network
http://fluoridealert.org/

FBI informant who stung RNC 2008 anarchists connected to ‘firebomb plot’ on Brave New Books and “suicided” Palestinian activist Riad Hamad

2009-12-08T14:00:00.006-06:00

Is Austin-area FBI Informant Brandon Darby, who allegedly provoked anarchists into plotting with ‘molotov cocktails’ at the RNC 2008 connected to plans to "firebomb" patriot bookstore Brave New Books and a sting on "suicided" Palestinian activist Riad Hamad?

Aaron Dykes
Infowars
December 8, 2009

Remember Riad Hamad, the Palestinian man who’s "suicide" left him at the bottom of Lady Bird Lake in Austin with his mouth gagged and arms duct-taped behind his back? (Kurt Nimmo, Did Palestinian Activist Riad Hamad Commit Suicide? )

According to reports, he was observed at meetings with now-outed FBI informant/provocateur Brandon Darby, who admittedly set up two anarchist/leftists from Austin with "molotov cocktails" who were subsequently arrested for alleged plans to attack police cars outside the RNC 2008 in Minnesota in connection with the "RNC Welcoming Committee."

Since Darby’s exposure as an admitted FBI informant, flyers have been seen in coffeehouses across Austin reading “Wanted: Brandon Darby An Informant Rat Loose in Austin.”

Flyers circulated across Austin coffeehouses reading “Wanted: Brandon Darby An Informant Rat Loose in Austin.”

WHAT’S MORE– Scott Crow, anarchist/leftist who formed the Hurricane Katrina relief group "Common Ground Collective" has made a number of interesting connections with fellow member Brandon Darby, whose role in Common Ground may have coincided with his FBI/Police Informant role, which may have begun in 2004, 2005 or 2006.

Scott Crow claims that in 2006, after Brandon Darby was admittedly an FBI informant, Darby attempted to recruit Crow on a plot to "firebomb" Brave New Books of Austin, Texas. Crow writes:

In Darby’s ‘revolutionary rhetoric’ over the years he tried to get numerous people, including myself, to do the things the two men were eventually taken down for. I believe now he tried to set me up in 2006 (after he, according to FBI documents began informing and provoking) to firebomb a bookstore called Brave New Books in Austin. I was NOT interested at all and thought it was stupid. I tried to talk him out of it. The event never happened. He was allowed to change his mind and move on. What if the Feds had raided him at the time?

This astonishing information was brought to my attention by Harlan of Brave New Books, but the connection to Riad Hamad I found only afterwards in Crow’s posts. Harlan writes:

The vitriol that seems to chase Darby to this day is due to the fact that two young activists David McKay and Bradley Crowder have been sentenced to a combined six years in prison for possessing several Molotov cocktails that were to be used during demonstrations at the 2008 Republican National Convention and were convicted in large part through the testimony of Brandon Darby. The possession of the cocktails is not in question, but what seems peculiar is why Darby an older, seasoned activist would agree to take part in a plan to firebomb a flock of police cars at the RNC, according to the FBI, and not just persuade the younger protégés to avoid instigating violent action? According to the defendants, Darby had encouraged the violence and had provoked the younger activists to take this direction, an allegation Darby denies. Darby admits that he was asked by the bureau to be the “eyes and ears" to monitor the small, loose-knit group of activists that included McKay.

Scott Crow (left) with Brandon Darby (right)

Crow initially defended Darby against allegations that he was reporting to the FBI , warning against ‘divisive rumors’ and COINTELPRO, even after claims had spread that he was an FBI informant. After Darby publicly admitted his role as an informant, Crow expressed regret for his support in a post titled "Eating Crow", and the later expressed several suggestive claims about the extent of Brandon Darby’s political provocateuring in the Austin political scene, as posted on the PM Press.

Darby has appeared on ‘This American Life’/ NPR and in papers like the Austin Chronicle to talk about his background as an activist and his account of how he became an FBI informant through a New Orleans cop– once opposed to his groups’ actions until he was swayed by community relief efforts he witnessed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Or so the story goes…

Crow claims that Darby began contacting the FBI earlier, however, when he traveled to New Orleans in 2004 (prior to Hurricane Katrina) to "see what [the FBI] had on him" in their files. Clearly, in light of certain revelations, this may demonstrate a much longer-lasting relationship inside the FBI.

Brandon Darby has some wild claims, as stated in ‘This American Life,’ that he traveled to Venezuela to convince Chavez to fund their Hurricane Katrina relief effort. While there, he says he was referred to a meeting with the FARC rebels who tried to recruit him to start a revolutionary group ‘in the swamps of Louisiana.’ Darby says he turned them down.

FBI Informant Brandon Darby claims he went undercover to stop Riad Hamad from ‘recruiting people for ‘terroristic’ like activities. Could Darby have been really entrapping Hamad? Why was Hamad found dead, gagged and duct-taped at the bottom of a lake?

Shortly afterwards, while back in Austin, he admits to having reported to the FBI what he claims was a Palestinian man trying to recruit him for a bombing. This may have been connected to Riad Hamad. Crow mentions the NPR stories’ account of the interaction with Riad Hamad:

In the ['This American Life']/NPR story, they mention Darby going undercover to stop a Palestinian peace activist named Riad Hammad [sic] from recruiting people for potentially ‘terroristic’ like activities. They don’t mention that Riad was found dead at the bottom of a river here in Austin under very unusual circumstances which the Feds ruled a suicide, but looked like was done to him. And that there is NO public evidence that anything that Darby is saying is true. I don’t know myself, but Riad cannot defend himself against the accusations.

Scott Crow claims that Brandon Darby introduced him to Riad Hamad and other Palestinians at Green Muse Cafe coffee shop in Austin, telling him that "these were real revolutionaries" and not just "anarchists."

This inciting rhetoric, which Crow believes was another attempt to provocateur him into revolutionary action/violence was very similar to supposed accounts of Darby’s goading the "Texas 2" prior to the RNC 2008 that they were ‘weakling vegetarians’ and ‘couldn’t handle potentially violent revolutionary acts at the RNC.’ McKay claims Darby further goaded them to find out if they would take ‘revolutionary’ action or not. When he apparently agreed, it led to the bust. Crow writes:

They also don’t mention that when I went to meet Darby at the Green Mews [sic] coffee shop in Austin during this time he was often with Riad and some men he described in excited tones as ‘real revolutionaries’ not activists. He could not wait to tell me, as if I would be impressed. I told him, as always that he needed to watch out for people he didn’t know, but what I didn’t know was working for the Feds. Silly me. So he is bragging about this in a public place, did he entrap Riad for the Feds like Brad and David? I have no idea, but I know that Riad is dead either because he took his own life because he thought someone was after him, or someone else took his life, because they figured there was an informer in their midst. Either of those scenarios are completely sad and scary, and not the world I want to create or be a part of.

Crow points out that Darby’s accounts of when he first contacted the FBI do not add up:

On at least THREE different and unrelated times Darby has stated that it was the FIRST time or reason he contact the FBI. The first was in 2004 when he, according to what he told me and my partner, went to visit the New Orleans office of the FBI to see what they had on him. It sounded SOOOO paranoid. He explained the story in great detail about his visit. The second time was in recent interviews where he has stated he saw that Brad and David were going to do something ‘harmful’ at the RNC in Minneapolis and he had to intervene. And now he is saying that he had to visit the Feds when he saw that Riad Hammad [sic], his friend, was not in fact a school teacher in Austin, but was involved in some other ‘nefarious’ activities. So which is the truth? I know he met commander Bryson of NOPD in Oct/ or Nov. of 2005. He has stated in interviews that Bryson is the one who introduced him to the Feds. Did he begin his work to spy on Common Ground and all of us then? Where is the real Darby?

Crow says that while he knew Brandon Darby for more than six years inside the Austin activist community, his actions were consistently violence-oriented, and with grandstanding, in opposition to the views held by most of the other anarchist members.

For years he advocated ‘blowing things up’ and later using arson. I don’t know if he did, but he sure did try to get other to do it. So was it revolutionary zeal or agent provocateur sh*t straight out of the manual?

Crow states that Darby seemed to merely adopt the rhetoric of various activist groups while differing from their common behaviors (most of the activists were vegan, yet he ate meat; was in favor of dictation over consensus, and ’slept with a lot of women’ and acted in a macho or chauvinistic manner). Crow wrote:

Darby was NOT an anarchist. He actually never claimed to be for the longest time. He disagreed with horizontal organizing and many of the underpinnings of anarchism. He DID however absorb the language, when necessary for interviews or speaking in public. He NEVER absorbed the practice during the 6 years I have known him. He actually was more of a quasi ‘central-democratic’ Marxist. He thought anarchist wasted time, energy and resources. Myself and few excluded of course . He would blurt in the same breath. He aligned himself with what he thought the Black Panther Party central committee would do–whether it was true or not. He didn’t have a liberation or even an anti-oppression analysis, but enough information to get by
within radical circles.

He was the only ”’anarchist”’ I have ever known that wanted to ‘overthrow the government’. I debated and argued with him about the impossibilities and reasons why that was a bad idea on so many levels, but he took that message many places to the chagrin and dismay of many radical circles.

Further information is found on the Rag Blog (more)

Harlan at Brave New Books writes:

Why was Darby choosing a bookstore as a target for a direct action? Was his plan a way to ensnare fellow activists in a plot that would eventually be foiled by the heroic FBI? Or was this plan another classic government provocateur attempting to firebomb an actual threat to the FBI and the state, wielding his useful idiots as his accomplices all the while knowing he would be provided the full protection of the FBI? The latter seems justifiably more accurate given the history of the FBI and its long train of abuses using agent provocateurs to carry out its dirty work. One need not look any further than the FBI’s clear infiltration of Elohim City using Timothy McVeigh as their asset. One could also look at the semi-retarded young religious men in Florida that were drafted by the U.S. government through the work of a joint terrorism task force agent who had infiltrated their group and persuaded them to express that they would be willing to help the terrorism task force blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Also, one should never forget that the FBI helped train an informant and provided materials to the informant that were used in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The bombing was allowed to occur with full knowledge of its planning by the FBI. There are loads of other examples that support the notion that the FBI routinely uses agent provocateurs in an effort to undermine its political enemies and swell its rank and budget.

In regrards to Brandon Darby, it is interesting to note that he was committed to seeing the Molotov cocktail bombing through at the RNC. According to the radio show This American Life, that featured Darby and people who knew him, Darby was willing to go ahead with the plan to bomb the police cars with David McKay in the early morning hours but the younger McKay never materialized and the plot was called off. This doesn’t describe the behavior of an innocent observer and sounds more like the actions of an active participant willing to commit an act of terrorism and then scapegoat a pair of useful idiots. So would Darby’s same zeal for terrorism had occurred if there would have been someone that would have been willing to help in Darby’s plan to attack the bookstore? Luckily, we will never know because he was never able to execute his plans

City Council Take Stance on Collecting DWI Blood Evidence

2009-10-25T19:50:00.002-05:00

Tony Plohetski
Austin American-Statesman
October 22, 2009

Austin city council members, in a unanimous vote, approved a resolution today that said it is their “clear will” and the community’s desire that police officers not personally collect blood from drunken driving suspects — an idea Police Chief Art Acevedo had floated for months.

The resolution stopped short of directing City Manager Marc Ott to ban such draws, which had been the original proposal by council members Bill Spelman and Laura Morrison and Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

Assistant City Attorney David Douglas told the council before their vote that the earlier measure appeared to conflict with state law, which requires officers to use “all lawful means” to enforce the law.

Also before the vote, Assistant Police Chief David Carter, who is the department’s chief of staff, told council members that the agency has no plans to train officers to draw blood. He said the idea was first mentioned last year after police officials reviewed practices in other Texas cities.

“We have not trained anybody, nor are we currently training anyone,” Carter said. “We do not expect to train anybody.”

Carter said that police officials have been and will continue to have blood drawn at Austin hospitals. He said they also are in talks with Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton about creating a partnership in which blood would be drawn from phlebotomists at the county’s central booking facility.

The resolution directs Ott to develop clear guidelines for the collection of blood specimens and bring them to the council by Feb. 19.

“The guidelines must explain who will collect the specimens and under what circumstances,” the resolutions said.

Ott also must prepare a cost study for the new blood specimen program.

Civil libertarians, including representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union of Central Texas and Texans for Accountable Government, had initially asked city officials to ban police officers from drawing blood.

They also had asked that police officers be prohibited from conducting so-called “no refusal” operations in which they seek the blood of drunken driving suspects who refuse to provide breath tests. Such operations usually are conducted on holiday weekends.

The resolution did not address that concern.

Flo White – Chemtrails

2009-10-14T20:12:00.001-05:00

http://www.flowhite.com/

Police Ready To 'Take On' Commenters, Chief Says

2009-09-20T19:30:00.006-05:00

People who misrepresent themselves as officials in online comments could face civil, criminal penalties, Acevedo says.

Tony Plohetski
The Austin American-Statesman
September 18, 2009

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo says he and some of his officers have been harassed, lied about and had their identities falsely used in online blogs and in reader comment sections on local media Internet sites.

They've had enough.

In a meeting this month with department brass, Acevedo and the group discussed how they think such posts erode public trust in the department and how they have been wrongly maligned.

They have since researched their legal options and decided that from now on, they might launch formal investigations into such posts, Acevedo said. He said investigators might seek search warrants or subpoenas from judges to learn the identities of the authors — he thinks some could be department employees — and possibly sue them for libel or file charges if investigators think a crime was committed.

"A lot of my people feel it is time to take these people on," Acevedo said. "They understand the damage to the organization, and quite frankly, when people are willfully misleading and lying, they are pretty much cowards anyway because they are doing so under the cloak of anonymity."

The effort to crack down on potentially illegal statements or comments that are possibly libelous — those published with the goal of defaming a person — is the second time in recent months that the department has confronted new social media.

In March, the social networking site Twitter shut down a fake account that pretended to issue official Austin police bulletins after the department and the Texas attorney general's office complained.

University of Texas law professor David Anderson said the hosts of sites where potentially libelous comments are posted are granted immunity by federal laws. Those who post comments can still be sued, however.

State lawmakers this year passed a law that took effect Sept. 1 making it a third-degree felony to use another person's name to post messages on a social networking site without their permission and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten.

Along with Internet blogs that offer readers a chance to give their opinions, media outlets — including the American-Statesman — in recent years have begun allowing readers to make comments online about stories and blogs.

The American-Statesman has a policy on what people can write in online comments. The newspaper asks that people keep their comments civil, not engage in personal attacks and not use profanity or racial or ethnic slurs. Comments about a person's sexual orientation or religion also are grounds for the removal of a comment.

Acevedo said he and other officers in recent months have faced allegations of sexual impropriety and suggestions that they engaged in quid pro quo behavior. A police commander has had his name falsely used as the author of comments about the department.

Acevedo said that in several cases, he thinks department employees were responsible for comments that appeared on sites such as Statesman.com. Officers and civilian workers who were responsible for the comments could face disciplinary action.

According to police policy, employees are barred from criticizing or ridiculing the department, its policies or employees in speech or in writing when it is "defamatory, obscene or unlawful." Rules also prohibit such speech or writing when it affects "the confidence of the public in the integrity of the department and its employees."

"If you want to criticize, critique, question actions, that's allowable under the First Amendment, and we encourage that," Acevedo said. "When you start actually representing facts, when they are absolutely outright lies, that can lead to civil liability and, potentially, criminal liability."

Austin Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr recently updated department policies prohibiting people from posting obscene or defamatory comments on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Department spokeswoman Michelle DeCrane said Thursday that officials have not yet discussed how they will enforce the updated policy.

According to published reports, lawsuits have been popping up nationally involving anonymous online speech.

However, the Associated Press has reported that most of the cases fail because statements of opinion are protected under the First Amendment. Courts are requiring officials to show they have a legitimate defamation claim — that is, one involving a false assertion of fact that hurts someone's reputation.

Austin City Council Meeting 8/6/2009 Item #9: Austin Regional Intelligence Center

2009-09-16T15:40:00.019-05:00

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/cityclerk/edims/2009/20090806-reg.htm#009

Fusion Centers Draw Outcry From Local Residents

Ben Wermund
The Daily Texan
August 7, 2009

John Bush stood before city council Thursday morning, his face half-hidden behind a red plastic mask.

“You’ll have to excuse the mask,” he said, taking his place at the podium. “The whole idea of these fusion centers has me a little paranoid.”

Bush was one of several Austin residents — some of whom’s faces were also concealed behind colored plastic — speaking out against the creation of a new Austin fusion center, a place where the police department will collect and monitor information on criminal activity.

But the residents were concerned the center will have its eye on more than just criminal activity.

Fusion centers, which began popping up across the U.S. with the purpose of preventing terrorism in a post-9/11 America, started as a joint effort between Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to coordinate intelligence between federal agencies and local police forces.

The Austin City Council approved a resolution for the use of Homeland Security grants to turn an existing Department of Public Safety building into the new Austin Regional Intelligence Center.

The issue will be brought before Austin residents and council again before the fusion center begins operation. The cost of transformation of the building was capped at $200,000.

Laura Martin, an American Civil Liberties Union of Texas policy analyst, said already-existing fusion centers across the nation have tracked information beyond just criminal activity.

“The ACLU of Texas believes these fusion centers undermine our basic right to privacy,” Martin said. “They were initially focused on terrorism, but have grown to include not only arrest information, but also credit reports, library records, bank statements and travel records.”

She said the fusion centers not only invade privacy, but are also ineffective when trying to solve crimes because of the sheer volume of intelligence they hold.

“With so much info on ordinary folks, this creates a needle in a haystack scenario,” she said. “They undermine democracy by chilling free speech.”

Jim Stetsman, a local business owner, said the police department does not need to know private information.

“What do you want my Randall’s card for? Why do you need to know how much beer I drink?” he said. “This is a camel’s nose under the tent.”

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the center will only be used to solve crime, not to monitor residents.

“It will only have predicated information that the agencies already have access to,” Acevedo said. “The only difference is, at a local level, there will be an automated process where we can connect the dots.”

He said APD is aware of the problems that have developed at other fusion centers.

“We are well aware of the mistakes of the other fusions centers,” Acevedo said. “I share these concerns. It’s kind of like an older brother — we learn form his mistakes. Well, those older fusions centers, we’re going to learn from theirs.”

Before council passed the resolution, councilwoman Laura Morrison, who originally proposed the resolution, withdrew her motion and asked to postpone the vote until the matter could be discussed with the community.

“I think that what the comments have made clear is that we, as a community, have not finished this conversation,” Morrison said. “There needs to be a broad and inclusive conversation.”

The resolution to fund the building passed shortly afterward, with a stipulation that the police department takes measures to ensure the fusion center will have community approval.

“I want to vet it out to the public and these folks before we even bring it to [council],” Acevedo said. “The bottom line is, we cannot go operational until you feel comfortable.”

Item #9 Introduction

Laura Martin Addresses the Council

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo Addresses the Council

Debbie Russell Addresses the Council

Jim Stetsman Addresses the Council

John Bush Addresses the Council

Fancy Fairchild Addresses the Council

Texas Impact Addresses the Council

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo Addresses the Council

Mike McDonald, Art Acevedo, and David Douglas Address the Council

Final Segment

Local Cops Get Access to Pentagon “Domestic Terror” Database

2009-09-16T13:52:00.001-05:00

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
September 16, 2009

On Monday, the Pentagon posted a news release on its website announcing the DoD and the Department of Homeland Security will “grant select state and major urban area fusion center personnel access to classified terrorism-related information residing in DoD’s classified network.” Federalized cops around the country will now be able to “access specific terrorism-related information” on Pentagon and DHS computer systems “in order to detect, deter, prevent and respond to homeland security threats.”

These “homeland security threats” have nothing to do with al-Qaeda or Muslims radicalized by the CIA in the 1980s.

In June Infowars posted an article revealing how the Pentagon indoctrinates its employees and soldiers. A multiple choice question included on a Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course required for all DoD personnel asked the following question: “Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?” The correct answer was “protests.” Of course, this nothing new — the Pentagon, the FBI, and the police have considered political activists terrorists for decades, a fact revealed Senator Frank Church’s Select Committee on Intelligence in the 1970s.

A FOIA request in 2006 by the ACLU revealed widespread surveillance of the antiwar movement during Bush’s reign. “The documents come in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU earlier this year after evidence surfaced that the Pentagon was secretly conducting surveillance of protest activities, anti-war organizations and groups opposed to military recruitment policies. The Pentagon shared the information with other government agencies through the Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) database,” noted an ACLU press release. “The TALON database was intended to track groups or individuals with links to terrorism, but the documents released today show that the Pentagon gathered information on anti-war protesters using sources from the Department of Homeland Security, local police departments and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces.”

TALON, short for Threat and Local Observation Notice, was authorized in 2002 by then Deputy Defense Secretary and high-level neocon Paul D. Wolfowitz. The database was maintained by the United States Air Force. On August 21, 2007, the US Defense Department announced that it would shut down the database, along with the secretive and classified CIFA that was given responsibility for analyzing the TALON reports. Many civil libertarians applauded the decision. However, data from TALON was not sent to the dumpster — it was migrated over to the FBI and included in its Guardian database. The Guardian Threat Tracking System, created in 2004, was created by the FBI “to manage the resolution of threats and suspicious incidents.”

Local cops with federal security clearances will now be able to access TALON and related data. “Increasing the breadth of law enforcement that have access to terrorism-related data will further improve the ability of fusion centers to prevent, detect, deter, and respond to terrorist attacks, and advance the combined missions of DHS and DoD to protect the nation’s security,” largely from “domestic terrorists” and “extremists” of the sort spelled out by the DHS in their now infamous “rightwing extremism” report.

In other words, the next time the cops pull you over because you have a “Don’t Tread On Me” bumper sticker on your car — designated as terrorist symbolism by the MIAC report — they will be calling in to see if you’re a “homeland security threat.”

“As fusion centers gain more and more access to Americans’ private information, the information about them being made available to the American public remains woefully inadequate,” according to Michael Macleod-Ball, Acting Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “There is a stunning lack of oversight at these fusion centers and, as we’ve seen, these centers are rapidly becoming a breeding ground for overzealous intelligence activities. Opening the door for domestic law enforcement to gain access to classified military intelligence coupled with no guidelines restricting the military’s role in fusion centers is a recipe for disaster.”

It is not a “recipe for disaster” — it is a recipe for a police state that rivals anything accomplished by East Germany’s Stazi, the KGB, SIDE, DINA, or other alphabet soup secret and political police organizations.

Obama will facilitate the process when he extends the USA Patriot Act later this year. The Patriot Act gives “the government the authority to access business records, operate roving wiretaps and conduct surveillance on ‘lone wolf’ suspects with no known link to foreign governments or terrorist groups,” the New York Times reports today.

As the DHS under the influence of the ADL tells us, the typical “lone wolf” is not a fellow traveler of the CIA’s al-Qaeda, but is influenced by “rightwing extremism,” defined as Second Amendment and pro-life activists, people opposed to illegal immigration, returning veterans, and the “racists” – as Jimmy Carter would have it – opposed to the globalist agenda of Obama.

Texas Taxpayers Pay Spanish Firm for Failed Toll Road Bid

2009-08-24T21:06:00.004-05:00

The loser in a bidding war for a toll road in Texas to receive $3.6 million from taxpayers.

The Newspaper.com
8/18/2009

An unaccountable transportation body in North Central Texas on Thursday awarded $3,615,214 in taxpayer money to a foreign corporation for its failure to produce a winning toll road project bid. The Regional Transportation Council (RTC) of the North Texas Council of Governments approved the payment to Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, a Spanish company, as a "stipend for unsuccessful bidders" and for costs associated with applications the company made for loans that would have been backed by federal taxpayers.

Although Cintra received a conditional green light in February 2007 for its bid to construct a 26-mile extension of State Highway 121 as a toll road through Denton and Collin Counties, the state legislature within a matter of weeks expressed second thoughts about the deal. New legislation restricted the private development of certain toll roads and forced the consideration of an alternative bid from the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA), a public agency.

On June 28, 2007, the RTC voted 27 to 10 to approve the NTTA proposal which was described as "more lucrative" than Cintra's. In return for an up-front payment of $2.5 billion, plus $1.5 billion in future payments, NTTA would have free reign to impose tolls on motorists for the next fifty years. The $4 billion in payments to the state would, in effect, be an advance loan of money that the agency expected to collect from motorists, less the substantial costs for overhead.

The switch to NTTA came in spite of Governor Rick Perry's strong support for Cintra throughout the process. In 2004, Perry had even hired his legislative director, Dan Shelley, away from his work as a consultant for Cintra. After the company landed several major state deals, Shelley returned to Cintra in 2006. By 2008, Shelley had collected an estimated $300,000 from the Spanish firm for his work as a registered lobbyist.

The payments to Cintra were made possible by Governor Perry's approval of legislation in June authorizing unlimited compensation to losing bidders on toll projects. Denton County taxpayers will pay the most, $1,961,063, to Cintra. Collin County will pay $1,446,086 and Dallas County $253,065. The anti-toll group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom (TURF) expressed outrage at the decision to send taxpayer money to Cintra.

"Wanna know why there's no money for roads?" TURF Founder Terri Hall asked. "Here's your answer. We're paying losers for not even building the roads. The cronyism is only getting worse, and it's at the expense of the taxpayers."

Police, Sheriffs Establishing Regional Intelligence Center

2009-08-16T16:59:00.002-05:00

Centers nationally have been target of complaints by civil libertarians.

By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, August 16, 2009

For months, detectives from two law enforcement agencies had been on the trail of the culprits in a series of home burglaries in Southeast Austin and southern Travis County. Neither group knew the other had similar unsolved cases.

They say they got a lucky break last week. While responding to separate burglary calls within minutes of each other Monday, Austin police officers and Travis County sheriff's deputies realized they were looking for the same thieves.

They soon found and charged three people, and they say they hope the arrests will help close other unsolved cases.

"It was just happenstance," Austin police Detective John Hardage said. "We should have been sharing information months ago."

Authorities say the case — and dozens like it — highlights the need for agencies in Central Texas to routinely exchange data about crimes, trends and suspect descriptions, an information flow they think will help solve more cases and decrease duplicate policing.

Beginning next year, they plan to start doing so at a federally funded, multimillion-dollar intelligence center — one of dozens of such "fusion centers" across the nation.

But some centers have sparked controversy after critics said officials overstepped their bounds and violated people's civil rights.

As part of the information exchange, the Austin Regional Intelligence Center will give investigators broader access to confidential information about suspects or criminal organizations.

For instance, officers now can troll national and state databases to see whether a suspect has been convicted of crimes or has outstanding warrants. The center will also allow investigators to access reports from neighboring departments that show any involvement suspects may have had with police there, including investigations into crimes they may not have been charged with.

Investigators at the center also will be able to access certain databases created by other agencies, such as those documenting suspected gang members and drug traffickers.

Officials currently don't have immediate access to such information from neighboring agencies but can seek it as part of an investigation, a process that detectives said can take days and stall their work. Too often, they said, they may not know when to turn to neighboring towns or counties to further their investigations.

David Carter, an Austin assistant police chief in charge of the intelligence center project, said analysts stationed at the facility also will stitch together information collected by various agencies to create new files on suspects in criminal cases or on suspects they think may be planning to carry out crimes and merit further surveillance.

"Law enforcement has been behind the curve in terms of our ability to exchange information," Carter said. "I think we also have been behind the curve when it comes to analysis and understanding. If there is something going on in this region, we need to understand it and get on top of it."

Civil liberties at risk?

To some civil rights advocates, the new effort to nab criminals has raised questions about the volume of information investigators will have at their fingertips, how they will use it and the types of files they will create.

Although Carter said center workers will abide by state and federal intelligence-gathering laws, incidents at other centers nationally have raised doubts for some.

"We do recognize that there are concerns in some people's minds concerning fusion centers in general," Carter said.

Earlier this year, for instance, an intelligence center in Collin County, north of Dallas, issued a bulletin that said, "It is imperative for law enforcement officers to report" activities of Muslim civil rights organizations and anti-war protest groups in their areas.

Among other things, federal laws bar law enforcement agencies from creating databases concerning political, religious or social views, but civil liberties groups have cited similar incidents in recent years at other intelligence centers, including those in Maryland and Missouri.

Laura Martin, a policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said organization leaders hope to meet soon with Austin police and other officials to more specifically discuss their worries.

Intelligence centers nationally have been "a huge priority for the ACLU," Martin said. "We have a lot of concerns."

In a 2007 report on the centers, the ACLU called on agencies to use the "utmost care" in the collection of personal data.

"Clearly not all fusion centers are engaging in improper intelligence activities and not all fusion center operations raise civil liberties or privacy concerns," the report said. "But some do."

Born of 9/11

The first intelligence centers were created soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Jack Thomas Tomarchio, former deputy undersecretary for intelligence and analysis operations at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said law enforcement agencies in several regions wanted to work more closely to monitor the possibility of more attacks.

Agencies around Los Angeles, Boston and New York were among the first to create intelligence centers, Tomarchio said. Federal officials have since made millions of dollars available to local officials to establish such centers, which total about 70 nationwide.

In Texas, the Dallas and Houston police departments operate their own intelligence centers. The North Central Texas Fusion Center, which opened in 2006, serves 16 counties, including Dallas and Tarrant. San Antonio also is working to establish a center.

Among its other criticisms, the ACLU contends that the centers have produced little solid evidence that they are helping solve crimes or thwarting terrorist activity.

Tomarchio agreed that few, if any, studies have generated statistics or other data about the centers' successes.

"These things are brand new," he said. "They haven't been around 20 years, and even the ones that have been around three or four years are still in their formative years. In many cases, they don't have a track record."

Support, opposition

Austin police officials and other Central Texas law enforcement representatives began last year trying to get money to create an intelligence center.

The city received a $1.8 million grant in 2008 for the center and got a $2.7 million grant this year.

Carter said most of the money will be used to buy computer equipment and to pay crime analysts from different agencies who will be stationed there. Officials have not yet established an annual operating cost.

The Austin and Round Rock police departments and the sheriff's offices in Travis, Williamson and Hays counties are the primary agencies involved in the project and will staff its operation with about eight to 10 crime analysts and detectives, some of whom will be hired using grant money. Carter said that if grant money runs out, departments probably would begin covering the salaries of the analysts.

Smaller agencies in the region will also have access to the center.

Opposition to the center surfaced at a recent Austin City Council meeting, when the council approved using $200,000 in grant money to renovate a Texas Department of Public Safety building in North Austin for the center.

Police officials said at the meeting that an agreement between agencies on privacy matters would probably be drafted next month with input from the ACLU and others. They also said there will be at least one public hearing before the council votes on the agreement.

John Bush, executive director for Texans for Accountable Government, said he wants to make sure officials seek public input on employee training, among other matters.

"There are definite benefits, without a doubt," Bush said. "They are going to be able to more efficiently solve crime."

But, he added, "I also see the potential for abuse."

The Broken Spoke on South Lamar in Austin, Texas

2009-08-07T01:14:00.001-05:00

I've chatted with Kinky Friedman a couple times in this fine place.

Rae Nadler Olenick on the Alex Jones Show - Toxins in Our Water Supply and Big Money

2009-08-06T22:02:00.003-05:00

http://blog.fluoridefreeaustin.com

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 5/11/2009

2009-05-31T18:05:00.001-05:00

* Cyberbullying Bill and the UN's Declaration of Human Rights.
* Integration of military and local law enforcement.
* Rightwing extremism document from Homeland Security (Bob Dacy: domestic terrorist/insurgent)
* HR2159 bill to deny firearms from terrorists.
* AND....more gun control.
* Sobriety checkpoints coming?
* More economy news.
* Poem of "The One."

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 4/6/2009

2009-04-07T16:05:00.002-05:00

* Police State Alert: Vampire Cops continued: clips of conference. Feds to make refusal to take tests a criminal offense.
* MIAC report disseminated.
* Oathkeepers.
* Texas Transportation Institute: Mileage based user fees.

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 3/23/2009

2009-03-24T20:09:00.005-05:00

• Police State Alert: Vampire police in Austin.
• Guests: John Bush and Katie Brewer of TAG: Texans for Accountable Government.
• Bob responds to MIAC report and...
• Barack Obama's National Service Bill.

Ron Paul: If America Were Occupied

2009-03-17T16:00:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk 3/9/2009

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 3/16/2009

2009-03-17T14:49:00.002-05:00

• Police State Alert: Ron Paul, Libertarians are extremists.
• Ron Paul video and speech.
• Chuck Norris article.
• More 2nd Amendment news: list of banned guns.
• Greenhouse gas registry: new taxes coming?
• Another Obama lie: Healthcare taxes coming.
• Bill HR 875: Home gardens banned?
• JBS clip: Dollars and Sense.

Dr. Katherine Albrecht Speaks on Microchips at Brave New Books 3/2/2009

2009-03-15T16:36:00.007-05:00

Katherine Albrecht speaks on microchips at Brave New Books in Austin, Texas along with Randall Mock, Lisa Marie Coppoletta, Judith McGeary, and Sheila Dean.

Pet Lovers Protest Micro-Chipping Law
CBNNews.com
March 6, 2009

The city of San Marcos, Texas is taking a second look at its mandatory pet micro-chipping law.

Protestors shot video at a candlelight vigil held this week to oppose the new policy. They say it violates pet owner’s rights and also poses a health risk.

Several studies show chip implants can cause malignant tumors in lab rats and mice.

“People are becoming very concerned that the government is becoming more and more intrusive in their lives,” microchip expert Katherine Albrecht said. “And when you start talking about the micro-chipping of animals we’re talking about a pretty invasive procedure.

“And I think for a lot of people there’s a real worry that if we allow the government to say we must microchip our animals then it’s just a matter of time before that government says we must microchip our children and even ourselves,” she added.

Animal control officers in San Marcos say dog collars often come off and they are trying to avoid euthanizing unidentified pets.

Several large cities in Texas and California have already passed mandatory pet chipping laws.

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 3/9/2009

2009-03-10T14:52:00.002-05:00

* Flashback to Trans Texas Corridor rally in 2006.
* Katherine Albrecht success: San Marcos overturns mandatory pet chipping.
* Mileage tax RFID chip studies: recording where you have been.
* Bailout funds Texas toll roads for triple taxation: Clip of Hank Gilbert confronting TxDOT.
* Mexico crisis worsens.
* "Accidental" deadly virus error.
* JBS Dollars & Sense clip.

Dr. Albrecht interview at the San Marcos, Texas Mandatory Dog Chipping Protest 3/3/2009

2009-03-08T18:51:00.001-05:00

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 3/2/2009 - Special Guest Dr. Katherine Albrecht: MICROCHIPS

2009-03-04T12:44:00.002-06:00

* Guest: Dr. Katherine Albrecht on Spychips and the future of RFID and surveillance.
* Bob gives examples of mainstream media lies, spin, and omission on today’s current issues:
* Vaccines
* Bailouts
* “Climate Change”
* and Gun Control.

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 2/23/2009

2009-02-24T16:07:00.002-06:00

* Barack: The Usurper, The Communist.
* Alan Keyes crticism of Obama and the Constitutional implications of the Obama administration.
* Global Warming agenda scam pursued by the Obama administration.
* Obama list of lies.
* Mexico instability.
* Gerald Celente grim predictions.
* Iowa National Guard gun confiscations.

Texans Unknowingly Donate Children's Blood to Research

2009-02-23T12:09:00.003-06:00

Mary Ann Roser
Austin American-Statesman
February 22, 2009

For almost seven years, the state has been indefinitely storing blood from nearly all newborns in Texas without their parents' consent for possible use in medical research.

The blood is collected as part of a 44-year-old state-mandated newborn screening program in which hospitals, birthing centers and midwives draw blood from a baby's heel — parental consent isn't required for that, either — so the state can test for a host of birth defects. The state either discarded the blood after six months or, more recently, stored it for three years before destroying it.

But starting in 2002, the state health department began collecting and keeping blood indefinitely for current or future medical research, a practice that has been the subject of a legal challenge in Minnesota.

Five dots of blood are collected on paper for the screening and then stored.

Under the health department's policy, the samples can be used by the medical community for things like cancer research, birth defects studies and calibration of lab equipment, said Doug McBride, spokesman for the Department of State Health Services.

The law doesn't require that parents be told how the blood might be used. But if parents are aware of the blood draws, Texas law lets them opt out only for religious reasons.

Parental consent isn't obtained, McBride said, because "requiring permission might be more costly and could require more time of hospital staff. But our real concern would be for the babies with detectable disorders that weren't detected because their parents declined the screening — babies who had no say in that decision."

The blood spots are stored at Texas A&M University's School of Rural Public Health, and each card bears a code number instead of a name, McBride said. The names matching those codes are kept at the state health department and are not released to researchers without parental consent, McBride said. The state considers the stored samples to be "de-identified."

Since 1965, Texas law has required the screening of newborns for birth defects, and the state now checks for 27 different health conditions — ranging from a gene that can cause severe mental disability to sickle cell anemia.

In 2002, the state health department's Birth Defects Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch asked that the blood be stored for research rather than discarded; the department's leadership agreed.

It contracted with Texas A&M in 2006 to store the samples because the agency did not have room to keep them indefinitely, according to a Nov. 15, 2006, health department memo.

The agency says in the memo that it did not need to change state law to store the blood samples because "the agency's position has been that health-related research that uses these bloodspots is consistent with this agency's overall mission."

The same memo says the department considers the blood samples to be "state records," which state law allows agencies to store indefinitely.

Quinn Godfrey, a 32-year-old father of two from San Antonio, said he had no idea when his daughter was born three years ago that newborn blood was being collected or stored indefinitely.

"My concern is they might not be able to do much with it right now, but 10 years from now? They could do a lot with it the way technology is going," Godfrey said.

When his second child was born Feb. 9, Godfrey said, he objected and asked to have an outside lab do it. But when he was told that wasn't possible, he gave in, he said.

Researchers in Texas said they hope to allay any parental concerns by pointing to the good being done with the blood and the future benefits to society.

"I'm using it to extract genetic variations and causes of certain birth defects: cleft lip and cleft palate and club foot," said Jacqueline Hecht, a professor of pediatrics and vice chairwoman for research at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

Hecht gets selected blood samples of children known to have those defects from the state's birth defects registry, but the names are excluded, McBride said.

By knowing the genetic fingerprints of disorders, researchers can suggest ways to prevent birth defects, Hecht and others said.

Without access to the blood samples, Hecht said, "we might miss the opportunity to make huge breakthroughs to help humanity. I'm using them to try and make life better."

Hecht said she considers privacy concerns to be overblown because she and her colleagues have no idea to whom the blood belongs.

"There are a lot of hoops you have to jump through" to use samples, she said, such as getting approval from an institutional review board, which looks out for patients' rights. "I don't see what the issue is."

But if the stored blood is so scientifically beneficial, "why isn't it more publicized?" asked Godfrey, the San Antonio father. "It just seems like they're being awfully sneaky about it."

James Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said that although his three grown children were all born in Texas, he had no idea of the practice and was "stunned by the whole thing."

Harrington said that he has no problems with screening newborns for birth defects but said he opposes storing samples without consent.

"I believe it's a violation ... of unlawful search and seizure," he said. "We're dealing with the most confidential information we have, and (for the government) to say, 'Trust us,' ... I find it impossible to believe."

McBride said, "There is nothing illicit, untoward or threatening going on. The purpose is to save lives, not to steal them." He's heard no complaints from anyone in Texas, he said.

"I would bet most parents aren't aware in Texas," said Twila Brase, a nurse who is president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care in St. Paul, Minn. The nonprofit has advocated patient and physician relationship rights since 1998.

Her group is fighting the practice in Minnesota after learning about it six years ago, she said.

"Our greatest concern is that this blood is being stored unbeknownst to the parents, and genetic research is being conducted without the consent or knowledge of the parents," Brase said. "And it's available for whatever legislators would decide to do with it in the future. When parents here discovered that, they got absolutely steamed."

What surprised Brase and others even more than not requiring parental consent was what they call the "warehousing" of the blood samples. Minnesota has stored more than 815,000 samples in the past 11 years, and as in Texas, no law authorizes that, Brase said.

Texas has stored 4.2 million samples since July 2002 — two per child, McBride said.

In Minnesota, Brase's organization won a ruling from an administrative law judge ordering that the state get informed consent from parents to store the blood, and the group aims to start a national outcry against the policy. Already, Brase said, blood from 52,000 Minnesota children has been used for genetic research without their parents knowing.

What if someday someone's genetic information got out to insurers and employers and was used to discriminate against certain people, Brase asked. "This is my DNA; it's not yours," she said. "Ask me if you want to use me for some project."

McBride said the state is bound by state and federal laws to protect the privacy rights of patients so it would not release the names to researchers or anyone else without parental consent.

Andrew Olshan, chairman of the epidemiology department at the University of North Carolina, said there is strong interest among researchers in creating a national database drawing on research from the samples to help solve the riddles of what causes autism, cancer and various birth defects. He said the potential benefits outweigh privacy concerns.

Art Caplan, a nationally known ethicist who directs the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he isn't troubled by the lack of consent or the indefinite storage. He said he sees a "ton of benefits" to having the blood available for research but said Texans should be educated about it and a public commission should control the samples.

But a Texas medical ethicist said parental consent should be obtained at the time the blood is drawn.

"Even if something is a social good, there can be a social harm," said Dr. Howard Brody, director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the UT Medical Branch at Galveston. "It's important to have trust in the scientific community ... and the more things that are done without consent, the more trust goes down."

The argument that scientists have a right to the blood because what they are doing with it is good "runs roughshod" over the rights of others, Brody said.

At minimum, the issue deserves more public discussion and transparency, he said.

"This is exactly the kind of issue," Brody said, "that is going to come back and bite us as a scientific community."

TX Rep. Leo Berman on Alex Jones Show 2/20/2009 "The Tenth Amendment"

2009-02-22T14:42:00.005-06:00

Alex talks with Representative Leo Berman of Texas who authored House Concurrent Resolution No. 50 declaring Texan sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment.

http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/dist6/berman.php

Texas Representatives Introduce Resolution Asserting Sovereignty Under Tenth Amendment

2009-02-19T17:12:00.001-06:00

Texas Rep. Leo Berman joins Alex Jones to talk about the H.C.R. 50 and states’ rights on Friday, February 20.

Infowars
February 19, 2009

Texas has joined the states’ right and Tenth Amendment movement by introducing House Concurrent Resolution No. 50, filed earlier this week by Republican state representatives Leo Berman, Brandon Creighton, and Bryan Hughes. H.C.R. 50 cites Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution, the Tenth Amendment, and the Ninth Amendment.

“The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal government may not usurp,” the resolution declares, while “Section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution says, ‘The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,’ and the Ninth Amendment states that ‘The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.’”

A number of proposals from previous administrations and some now pending from the present administration and from congress may further violate the Constitution of the United States; now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States…

H.C.R. 50 serves “as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers” and that “all compulsory federal legislation that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.”

Finally, the resolution directs the Texas secretary of state to forward official copies of the resolution to president Obama, Speaker of the House Pelosi, the president of the Senate, Joe Biden, and all members of the Texas delegation to the Congress. In addition, there is an official request that the resolution be entered in the Congressional Record as a “memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.”

Texas joins Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, California, and Georgia, states that have all introduced bills and resolutions declaring sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Alaska, Kansas, Alabama, Nevada, Maine, and Illinois are also considering such measures.

“While the ramifications of these resolutions are still uncertain, one thing is clear,” writes Barbara Minton. “People are sick and tired of the federal government’s usurpation of power not granted to it by the Constitution. They have had enough of fear based economic terrorism and underhanded promotion of policies and procedures that bypass public scrutiny and the will of the people.”

It should be noted that a resolution is a statement and not law and does not necessarily represent a consensus of a state legislature. “Still, the fact that two states, California and Georgia, have already passed their versions of state sovereignty may be setting the stage for secession down the road if the federal government continues to show its scorn for the Constitution. The Oklahoma resolution has already passed in the House and is awaiting vote in the state Senate to be codified,” writes Minton.

For more information on the Tenth Amendment and states’s right movement, see this Infowars resource page on the subject.

As should be expected, the corporate media has all but ignored H.C.R. 50, while Vince Leibowitz of Dallas-based Pegasus News calls the resolution “bizarre” and intimates that Berman, Creighton, and Hughes are insane. Leibowitz’s comments are a sad testament on how out of touch many Americans are when it comes to the Constitution and the increasing encroachments of the federal government.

On Friday, February 20, Rep. Leo Berman of District 6 will be on the Alex Jones Show to talk about the resolution and states’ rights.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

2009-02-13T19:10:00.002-06:00

End the Fed Rally at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas 11/22/2008

2009-02-12T17:47:00.003-06:00

Part 1/4

http://www.endthefed.us/

Part 2/4

Part 3/4

Part 4/4

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 2/9/2009

2009-02-11T13:15:00.001-06:00

* Perry: true conservative?
* Obama's nominees.
* Burning Beijing skyscraper doesnt collapse.
* Osama, FBI, and mainstream media.
* Huge oil deposits in Alaska capped in secret and Obama doing his part.
* More implied gun control by Obama and Obama cabinet.
* Too much news to print here this week.

Kinky Friedman May Run Again for Governor

2009-02-11T11:22:00.001-06:00

Kelley Shannon
Associated Press
February 11, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Humorist and author Kinky Friedman is toying with another run for Texas governor, but if he does enter the race, he says he's serious this time.

"I'm toning down the one-liners a bit. If I run, it's going to be a serious run," Friedman told The Associated Press on Tuesday, peppering the interview with one-liners.

Friedman said he learned some hard lessons from his fourth-place defeat in 2006 to Republican Rick Perry in a race with three political veterans.

He said he found out he couldn't win as an independent and that he shouldn't crack so many jokes. He'd rather run now with the help of a major party — the Democrats

Friedman also noted that Democratic comedian Al Franken did well in his U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, though his victory is still being debated in court.

"So this can be done," Friedman said.

Friedman, known for his signature black cowboy hat and cigar, has written more than 24 books, including "Cowboy Logic: The Wit and Wisdom of Kinky Friedman (And Some of His Friends.)" Some of his quips include "Never take a whiz on an electric fence."

He said he's been a Democrat all his life — though "not the kind of Democrat that goose-steps to the polling box" — and that he likes the direction the state party is taking.

During the 2006 campaign, Friedman said he would increase the number of National Guardsmen on the border from 1,500 to 10,000, fine companies for hiring illegal immigrants and require immigrants seeking jobs to apply for taxpayer identification cards and pass a background check.

Friedman now says Democrats can win the state's highest office if they pull in what he calls grass roots voters and small-town Texans. He considers rural support one of his strengths.

As he did many times in 2006, he criticized the Perry administration for being beholden to corporate interests. He said if he runs it will be as a "man of the people." Friedman said he wants to provide more support for teachers, improve health care coverage for Texans and abolish the death penalty.

"I do tend to ride to the left of the herd on most issues," he said.

Friedman said he has been actively talking to Democrats in the Legislature and elsewhere and encouraged any party members to call him. He says he's getting positive responses so far.

"I'm not a shy little bugger. I don't mind getting out there," Friedman said. He said he would have to make his decision on running soon. "It's not a done deal that I'm going to run at all."

Other potential Democratic candidates include former ambassador Tom Schieffer and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte of San Antonio.

On the GOP side, Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison plans to challenge fellow Republican Perry, the longest-serving leader in state history.

G. Edward Griffin Speaks on Collectivism in Austin, Texas 4/29/2008

2009-02-09T22:59:00.000-06:00

13-Part Video Playlist

Frequency Clear from Houston, Texas 1/26/2009: Reality Check

2009-02-09T20:34:00.000-06:00

Bart Black speaks on the response of the individual to the New World Order system.

Gardening Trend Sprouting with Vigor in Wilted Economy

2009-02-09T11:14:00.000-06:00

Karina Kling
News 8 Austin
February 8, 2009

The gardening world is sprouting with vigor in light of the poor economy and more people are becoming gardeners in an effort to be more mindful their spending habits.

As the price of produce spikes, first time gardeners are uprooting old fashioned habits of sustainable living to save money, while fostering healthier eating habits.

Christina Smith is a first time gardener who went out to The Natural Gardener in West Austin to get some tips and seeds to start planting.

"We're out here to ask as many questions as possible because we have no idea what we're doing," Smith said.

Smith is just one example of a growing group of first time gardeners hoping to save some money at the store by digging into their own dirt.

Lyda Guz with The Natural Gardener said business couldn't be better as more people pass through their produce aisle and opt to produce their own fruits and vegetables.

"We're seeing almost a 500 percent increase in sales of our vegetables," Guz said. "We're having trouble meeting the demand."

If you think you need a lot of room to grow a garden, you're wrong. If all you have is a square foot, or even simply a bucket, that's all you need to get started.

"Square foot gardens are four-by-four. Some things like broccoli you plant only one per square. Others like spinach are four to a square. It's a very compact way to grow a lot of food," Guz said.

So if you have a little sun and some good soil, you can join the hundreds like Christina Smith, planting their own produce.

It's a past time that's possibly once again becoming a popular way of life.

Back during World War II, 40 to 60 percent of people had personal or family gardens. They were called victory gardens.

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 2/2/2009

2009-02-04T17:03:00.000-06:00

* And no, the Trans-Texas Corridor is not dead.
* Governor Perry grandstands and lies about his intentions of veto to protect private property.
* Police State Alert: FEMA/DHS Bill creates detention/emergency camps in US.
* Change!!!: Outsourcing torture from Guantanamo.
* Agent Provocateur frame up.
* Supreme Court: Police screw ups don't matter.
* San Marcos, Tx: microchipping pets required.
* Obama's energy independence.

Doug Stanhope & Alex Jones Live in Austin, TX 8/13/2004

2009-01-23T19:57:00.000-06:00

Truth Be Tolled - TTC Special Edition

2009-01-23T11:14:00.000-06:00

12-Part Video Playlist

First Texas, then the nation.

Government has found a new way to make money on public infrastructure.

The plan is not only to convert existing roadways into toll ways without a public vote, but to seize over half a million acres of Texas soil and replace it with a 4,000 mile road, rail and utility network.

Many citizens are crying highway robbery. Corporations stand to profit as lobbyists and lawmakers pave the way for private foreign interests.

The political establishment is not listening to the people--but their voices will be heard.

This award-winning documentary follows the process as citizens exercise their most important power as members of a democracy:
freedom of speech.

Grassroots organizers to working-class Texans, all unite to state their loud opposition. The strongest voices rise from small rural communities whose farms, homes, schools, businesses and churches face the largest forcible eminent domain acquisition in U.S. history.

The Trans-Texas Corridor, the first leg of the proposed NAFTA superhighway, will not only rip the heart out of Texas-- it will kill a way of life that has been in the Lone Star State forever.

http://www.truthbetolled.com/

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 11/24/2008

2009-01-20T22:29:00.000-06:00

* The bailout bill and the Constitution.
* Change? Not in the Obama Administration. Biden, Powell warn of d-day after inauguration.
* More bailouts on the way.
* Kashkari in front of Congress.
* Bob's analogy of the Banker elites and Cecil Rhodes.
* Protecting the taxpayers?
* JFK secret society clip.

The Simple Truth with Bob Dacy 1/12/2009

2009-01-15T15:39:00.000-06:00

* The Trans Texas Corrridor is Dead!!!
(uh no, not really)
* The Statesman doing its part to keep it quiet.
* How did Israelis in New York KNOW that 911 was going to happen?
* Israelis genociding Palestinians?
* Military officer sues Cheney and Rumsfeld for prior knowledge of 911Pentagon attack.

Cow Tax Proposal Rankles Ranchers

2009-01-13T16:46:00.000-06:00

David Schechter
WFAA Channel 8 Dallas - Fort Worth
January 13, 2009

SAGINAW — Of all the problems on president-elect Barack Obama's plate, add this one: Beef.

The Environmental Protection Agency is considering rules to regulate cow emissions as a cause of global warming. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, comes from the manure of large animals like cattle.

Pete Bonds is a veteran rancher in Saginaw. He's one of many ranchers fighting the "cow tax" proposal, which is still in a early phase.

By some estimates, a methane permit could cost as much as $175 dollars per animal. And that could place a premium price on favorite foods like hamburgers and steaks.

"That takes us time, and that takes us money and cost to be able to do that," Bonds said. "Unfortunately, if it does, we're going to have to pass that on to the consumer — and we don't want to do that."

When it comes to climate change, some scientists say methane is worse than the carbon dioxide that spews from cars and factories.

But Bonds half-wonders whether the whole thing is just a vegetarian plot.

"If you've ever been in a room full of vegetarians, a lot of methane is being produced," he said. "I'm wondering if they're going to start putting a permitting process on them."

Trans-Texas Corridor Born Again As “Innovative Connectivity Plan”

2009-01-11T17:47:00.000-06:00

Ann Shibler
The John Birch Society
January 09, 2009

Declared dead by TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz and Governor Rick Perry on Tuesday, January 6, the Trans-Texas Corridor was then immediately born again — under an assumed name.

They must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they declared the NAFTA Superhighway defunct, because in typical governmentium nauseum verba they acknowledged that the original plans will be built as stand-alone smaller projects with their very next breaths.

The Interstate 35 tollway twin from San Antonio to Oklahoma and Interstate 69 from Brownsville to Texarkana, and the 130 toll road’s construction will move forward. Governor Perry said, “We really don’t care what name they attach to building infrastructure in the state of Texas. The key is we have to go forward and build it.” Saenz seconded that saying only a name change is occurring: “We’ve decided to put the name to rest.”

But the San Antonio Express-News reports that the corridor remains intact. “Toll roads, truck-only lanes and rail lines are still in the works,” and the environmental impact studies, meetings, and consulting agreements with private contractors go on as well.

Senate Transportation Committee chairman John Carona, R-Dallas said after the name-change announcement, “We can now focus on the real issue, which is additional road capacity and the means to finance the same.” Saenz said his agency will try to keep the corridor widths to 600 feet, as opposed to the original 1,200 feet — a concession to farmers, ranchers, and small-town mayors who stood to lose entire livelihoods.

Of course the TTC was never really dead. It still existed in the Texas Transportation Code and in the well-laid plans of Texas State officials. But a bill eliminating that entire section of law has been filed. If the bill is passed, TxDOT would no longer have the authority to build the road/rail/utility corridor. So, Governor Perry and his toll road backers have to move quickly.

The Spanish and American consortium that developed the plan, Cintra-Zachry, signed a contract for $3.5 million with the TxDOT, and later this year will indeed start construction on two segments. TxDOT still plans to partner with private companies to build and lease the toll roads.

The connotation that the Trans-Texas Corridor/NAFTA Superhighway suffered after the realities of the land-gobbling, sovereignty-sapping, private property-trampling plan was exposed through grassroots activists’ efforts is seen as all that needs to be repaired by the powers that be. Perhaps they think that the good people of Texas who saw right through the plans the first time will be put to sleep by the benign title chosen for the very same project — Innovative Connectivity Plan.

Perry’s $183 billion 4,000-mile-long project that he continues to push for might just be his political undoing. He’s got to pay for the project somehow, and raising taxes is not going to be a good idea in a tight economy, for a project in a state where people have already demonstrated that they do not want said project — under any name. He already knows that he’s facing possible opposition in his bid for reelection from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who would, most likely, use his continued arrogance in this matter to her advantage.

Hospitals, Jail Officials Don't Want to Collect Suspects' Blood

2009-01-09T22:29:00.000-06:00

Officials cite different reasons for not wanting to draw blood of drunken driving suspects.

Tony Plohetski
Austin American Statesman
Friday, January 09, 2009

Leaders of the city's two major hospital networks and Travis County Jail officials have told Austin police that they no longer wish to collect blood evidence of suspects in criminal investigations.

Officials for the county's central jail booking facility, where such samples have traditionally been taken, informed police last year that they no longer wanted nurses involved in the practice. Jail nurses stopped taking the samples, which are mostly used in drunken driving cases, on Jan. 1.

Hospital representatives have since asked Austin police not to bring suspects to emergency rooms for blood draws, a procedure that has grown in popularity among law enforcement agencies and prompted controversy locally.

Jail and hospital officials cite a variety of reasons for their decisions.

A Seton Family of Hospitals official said workers are worried about lawsuits, among other concerns. However, an expert in such blood draws for drunken driving cases said state laws are clear that nurses and hospitals are protected from such suits.

Dr. Steve Berkowitz, chief medical director for St. David's HealthCare, said, "We don't really feel that the emergency room is really the most appropriate place to be doing those types of procedures, because they really aren't being seen for a medical reason."Berkowitz said hospital officials still support police efforts to curb drunken driving.

Staff with the Travis County Sheriff's Office, which runs the jail, have decided that nurses should spend their time tending to inmates, not collecting evidence.

Police say they must now find a new way to get samples in cases in which they think the evidence is necessary.

"We have a moral and legal obligation to obtain evidence of a crime, and our ability to do so is being hampered by the decisions of entities we have no control over," Police Chief Art Acevedo said. "It presents a tremendous challenge for us."

The decisions come as the use of blood tests in drunken driving cases has grown among Austin police officers and others across the state.

During the New Year's Eve and Halloween holidays, Austin police conducted so-called "no refusal" operations in which they obtained the blood of drunken driving suspects who refused to give a breath test.

The department hired a phlebotomist for those operations, but has still sought blood samples for suspects when the "no refusal" efforts were not in place. Police estimate they have averaged about 30 such blood draws per month in recent months.

The effort to obtain blood evidence, which courts have upheld as a practice, has created controversy, with civil libertarians saying that blood draws are an unnecessary invasion. They say that officers should be able to build cases without such procedures.

Among other major Texas cities that also have begun collecting such samples, most, including San Antonio and Houston, continue having jail nurses draw suspects' blood, said Clay Abbott, a DWI resource prosecutor for the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.

Fort Worth police take suspects to a local hospital for the procedure, he said. Local paramedics collect blood samples in some small towns.

State laws allow police to use search warrants to obtain suspects' blood, which Abbott said gives nurses and hospitals lawsuit protection because they are acting under court order.

The law also permits police to draw the blood of suspects in drunken driving crashes involving serious injury or death without a search warrant. Abbott said nurses and medical facilities still have legal protection in those instances, as long as they are acting in the scope of their normal duties.

According to the law, "The person who takes the blood specimen under this chapter, or the hospital where the blood specimen is taken, is not liable for damages arising from the request or order of the peace officer to take the blood specimen."

Abbott and Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said they are both unaware of any lawsuits in Texas against medical officials who have drawn blood of drunken driving suspects.

Greg Hartman, senior vice president for Seton, said hospital officials want more time to understand legal issues and other matters before collecting such samples.

For instance, he said emergency room nurses do not perform medical procedures without a doctor's order. When drawing blood for a criminal case, doctors seldom evaluate suspects, creating concerns among the nurses, he said.

Hartman said hospital officials also want to further discuss with police who will pay the salaries of nurses if they are called to testify in court for such cases. He said he is not aware of any nurses that have been summoned to court so far for such cases.

And Hartman said the legality of nurses collecting blood evidence hasn't been tested in court and that officials are concerned about suits against employees or hospitals.

"This is a very complicated issue," Hartman said. "We aren't making decisions as to whether (law enforcement) should be doing this."

Travis County sheriff's office Maj. Mark Sawa, whose agency was the first to prohibit nurses from drawing suspects' blood for evidence, said officials decided that they also did not want jail nurses called to testify in court cases and missing work.

He said that providing inmate care is their "essential function" and that the department is seeking a national certification in which jail nurses are not involved in evidence gathering.

Acevedo said police officials are now trying to find other options for collecting blood, including possible contracts with private clinics. He said it also is possible that the department might train a team of officers to collect blood.

Acevedo said he has no estimates on the cost of a possible contract or training of officers.

In the meantime, he said, officials will try to work out a temporary plan with either the jail or a hospital.

"We are going to do what we need to do to secure the evidence we need while minimizing the cost to taxpayers," he said.

Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys - They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore (1975)

2009-01-09T21:27:00.000-06:00

San Marcos Mandates Pet Microchips

2009-01-09T19:25:00.000-06:00

Russell Wilde
News 8 Austin
January 9, 2009

Last year, the San Marcos Regional Animal Shelter and Adoption Center took in thousands of lost or abandoned pets.

Now, thanks to the city's new animal ordinance they hope to return many of those animals to the owners.

The new ordinance requires all pet owners to have chips implanted in their pets.

San Marcos Animal Services Manager Bert Stratemann said the microchips are more reliable than the current tags.

"It's not going to get lost, it's not going to get taken off when you give it a bath," he said. "It's a way we can help track those animals back to their owners."

Some pet owners said the plan is the responsible thing to do.

San Marcos resident Kevyn Reed has a cat with a chip. She thinks the technology provides extra security.

"If you own a pet you should want to know where your pet is at all times, and that's kind of a safety net for you," she said.

The microchip will replace the city's current annual license and fee.

The new ordinance also restricts how pets can be chained or tethered in yards and bans selling or giving away animals on
the side of the road or in parking lots.

The changes take effect April 1.